You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?
He is a cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel
He is the bar room loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel
She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang
He is the POW that went away one person and came back another - or didn’t come back at all
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat, but has saved countless lives by turning no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs
He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand
He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by
He is the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them in the battlefield or in the oceans sunless deep
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and wishes all day long his wife was still alive to hold him when the nightmares come
He is an ordinary yet extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, “Thank You”
—Unknown
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